Off to a damp start!

Tuesday 25th July
We finally got away from Giggleswick around lunchtime on Monday, after topping up the tyre pressures and then a final check at the weighbridge. Fortunately the gross weight came to exactly the maximum permissible - 3500kg and that was evenly distributed between both axles, so we just got away with that!

We made it to Hull in time for the ferry, after a last minute stop at Ferrybridge Services for rice, sugar and tomato ketchup!! The sailing was calm . . .. . . . and the food delicious!


. . . . . and we arrived at Rotterdam, on Tuesday morning, full of enthusiasm which is only slightly diminished as we now sit on a campsite near Osnabruck listening to the heavy rain on Helga's roof. But it's early days and there's lots of time for the heatwave to start. . . tomorrow would be good!!

"Tomorrow" (Wednesday) dawned bright and clear with no rain ( and no heatwave either, but pleasantly warm)

 Helga looking comfortable on "home ground"!

The campsite was a "holiday camp" for families, and had a large lake with a clever waterski training device, see the picture below. The towing ropes were hooked onto a revolving overhead wire which pulled the skier round the lake. They're probably very common but they were new to us, they certainly haven't arrived in Settle yet!


 After a brief look round we got back on the road around 11o'clock and continued up to the Baltic coast beyond Hamburg. We found a stellplatz (German equivalent of the French Aires) beside a restored narrow gauge steam railway and with its own access to the beach as well as the coastal cycle path.


 Sunset over the Baltic! Our first contact with it this trip.


 The steam railway seen from the campsite.

We stayed two nights and on Thursday we cycled along the coast to Kuhlungsborn, a nearby resort town.

 Something else which was new to our Settle eyes, these fancy chairs seemed to be everywhere, on the beaches and outside the bars. A sort of double deckchair with a canopy. They seemed to be very popular with "older couples".

 Halfway along the promenade at this very smart and modern upmarket holiday resort was this unusual exhibit.

I have seen one like it before, in Berlin beside the line of the Wall! It was a surveillance tower from the days of the cold war.  From 1945 until the end of 1989, Kuhlungsborn was in the DDR (East Germany) and was not far from the West German border. It was a popular place for attempts to escape to the West by sea. This lookout tower was used by the border guards and volunteers, to search the sea and the surrounding coastline for any suspicious activity. A local preservation group has managed to get it preserved as a memorial of those times. You could climb up inside it, if you were fit and able, (we decided against), and there was an interesting museum alongside it with stories and artefacts from some of the successful and unsuccessful escape attempts.





After all that excitement there was just time for coffee and muffins before cycling back to camp, just as the heavens opened, yet again!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Netherlands - Hoping there's a finger in the Dyke!

I am sitting on a campsite in a forest beside a lake not far from Arnhem in the Netherlands. It rained pretty well non stop on our journey today, from Bremen in Germany, and it has increased in intensity since we arrived at the campsite! I guess we can't complain as it's the first real rain we have had in nearly 7 weeks of traveling, but the noise is a bit intense on Helga's roof and I just hope that the pumps are all working that maintain the Netherlands as dry land! After a day visiting Copenhagen, by bus from the campsite that we eventually found north of the city, we moved over onto Fyn, the middle island of Denmark. This involved crossing yet another bridge, (and paying yet another toll). The Storebaelt Bridge is smaller than the Oresund, but in many ways it is a more attractive bridge to cross, as it affords better views. We found a nice campsite about 4km out of the town of Odense, the capital of Fyn and the home of Hans Christian Anderson, of fairy-tale fame. Ther...
Read more

Cruising to Helsinki!

Image
We left Tallinn at lunchtime on Tuesday and enjoyed a delightful Baltic cruise . . . . for three and a half hours, which is the time it took the Tallink ferry to travel across to Helsinki. It was a very smart new looking ship, the sun was shining the sea was like a mill pond. We spent most of the journey sitting out on the sun deck enjoying our packed lunch and a beer from the bar.  Ta ta Tallinn  . . . . . . .                                              . . . . . and Hello Helsinki! We are on a campsite a few kilometers from the centre but next door to a Metro station with regular trains into the city. We spent Wednesday exploring the waterfront Market place with its stalls selling fruit and veg, fish, tourist souvenirs and Moose burgers! However, we settled for savory pancakes with ham and cheese instead. We also looked around a very large dep...
Read more

Two days to go!

Image
Provisions are being collected together, whilst Helga waits patiently to get on her way! A little bit of background:- Incredibly, a whole decade has  already passed since we made our first circuit of the Baltic Sea. Back then, in 2007, it was planned as the maiden trip for our newly converted ex-RAF Land Rover Defender ambulance, which we named the "Liberator". On that occasion, we followed a clockwise route, starting with the DFDS ferry crossing from Harwich to Esbjerg, in Denmark, and then passing through Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland and Germany, before returning to Denmark and back via the same ferry route to Harwich. The whole route, including a few days in St Petersburg and the excursion into Belarus, took us just 6 weeks. The "Liberator" has now moved on to new owners and new adventures and we have become the owners of "Helga", a 1996 Hymer B544 motorhome. Helga is a little bit wider, a little bit longe...
Read more